


Along Came Spring

by misura



Category: The Hexslinger Series - Gemma Files
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Multi, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2018-01-05 18:04:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Anyone'd told Ed a year ago that he'd see Chess Pargeter milking a cow, or thatching a roof, he'd have doubted their sanity.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Along Came Spring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evewithanapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/gifts).



> especially compared to the books, this is the fluffiest kind of fluffy fluff.
> 
> I regret nothing. especially not the cow.
> 
> (written as a treat and backdated.)

“ _Work,_ ” Chess said, voice filled with a vitriol loathing.

Ed, used to such outbursts by now, merely shrugged. “That's the way of it, on a farm. Always something that wants fixing, or simply doing.”

Chess shook his head, disgust written all over his face. “Seein' as how I _made_ this place, I s'pose I ain't got none to blame for it but my own damn self.”

“Don't think that's so, truly. You made this place, aye. Did a fine job of it, too.” For all that the farm wasn't _quite_ familiar, from the moment he'd set eyes on it, it'd felt _right_ to Ed. Like home. Or, as Ed halfway suspected, like Chess'd picked his and Yancey's brains one last time, and had mixed up what'd been in there on the subject.

“Put it down to my vast 'xperience with the farmin' life,” Chess said. “ 'though most farms I see up close, I was settin' fire to 'em.”

Didn't seem much to say to _that_ , so Ed simply shrugged once more and went back to hammering nails.

 

From the beginning, the very first day he'd shown up on their doorstep, looking hungry but not particularly mean if you knew him, Chess'd made it clear he hadn't come to stay.

Ed hadn't taken it personally, and Yancey'd informed Chess that if he expected to be getting room and board for free, he'd best think again, and so here they were, a good seven months later.

Thing was, at this point, Ed thought they'd be hard-pressed to do without Chess - which seemed to beg the question of how they'd managed, before.

“Just fine, I'd say,” Yancey said, when Ed made the mistake of asking her and got repaid for it by being sent to fix the chicken coop, not two moments later, as Chess looked on, amused and more than a bit smug at having dodged _that_ particular chore.

 

“Think I might take off, tomorrow,” Chess said, and for all that Ed had grown immune to Chess's scowls and complaints by now, the idea of Chess leaving still bothered him some.

“In that case, I'd appreciate it mightily if you were to fix the roof today,” Yancey said.

“What's wrong with the roof?”

“Doesn't leak, far as I know,” Ed said, blaming it on his distraction, after, when the damage'd already been done.

“Be nice if it kept that way now, wouldn't it?” Yancey didn't quite smack him and called him out as a bloody fool, but that was probably only 'cause Chess was right there and might have taken it upon himself to get involved. (No telling on whose side, of course. Although probably not Ed's.)

“S'pose so,” Chess said, grudgingly.

“Best get to it, then, hadn't you?”

 

If Ed had discovered a previously unknown talent for the farming life, Yancey was making the most of her talent for finding jobs and setting people to do them. (In her defense, she always appeared plenty busy herself, too.)

Anyone'd told Ed a year ago that he'd see Chess Pargeter milking a cow, or thatching a roof, he'd have doubted their sanity. Butchering a pig, yes, maybe - and he'd heard Chess'd been doing a bit of that sort of work, both during the War and before.

Killing things, 'cause that was what Chess was good at, for all that he took no pleasure in making things suffer - not unless they were people, anyhow, and ones he'd felt had wronged him or his somehow, and even then. (Ed didn't think he'd ever get it out of his head, that face Chess'd made when Rook had gone from him, last time and for good.)

Even then, Chess had generally shot to kill. Not mercy, nor kindness by any means. Simply doing what he was good at, what he seemed made for.

“Stop moving, ya stupid cow!”

Addressed to a different animal (and one that actually understood English, at that), the insult might have resulted in something other than Chess being roundly ignored. Ed grinned - a mistake only if Chess were to turn and catch him at it, which seemed a bit unlikely, given that Chess appeared occupied with ... more pressing things, just now.

On the other hand: “A true friend'd be offerin' me some help here, Ed!”

“A true friend might be showing some concern for my getting a decent night's sleep every once in a while,” Ed yelled back, unruffled.

Chess gave him a look that wouldn't have been misplaced on an angry cat, ready to unsheathe its claws and make its displeasure known to someone in a decidedly pointed way.

Ed sighed and gave in to the inevitable.

 

Incidents aside, though, Chess did make for a surprisingly solid farmhand, albeit an uncommonly well-dressed one. Every once in a while, Ed'd catch him with that expression that said he was thinking about doing things the easy way, by hexation.

And every time, Chess ended up doing things the less easy way, by hand and tooth and nail, if need be, which left Ed thinking maybe he wasn't the only one none too keen on Chess leaving, for all that Chess was too stubborn by half to admit it.

Then again, wasn't as if Ed went out of his way to tell Chess he wanted him to stay, for all that he most assuredly did, same as Yancey.

 

Before Chess's arrival, Ed was fairly sure the farm'd had two bedrooms. One large, and one smaller - which he'd foolishly assumed to be intended for any guests or children, were there to be any, right until the night he found himself tossed out of the bedroom he'd come to think of as 'theirs' (that was to say: his and Yancey's) after some unwisely worded comment on some subject he was now hard-pressed to recall.

After Chess's arrival, there were three, but two of them seemed to stand empty, more often than not, especially after Ed discovered that Chess and Yancey were much alike in their uncanny ability to find him whenever they wanted to, never mind his own wishes in the matter.

They seemed content to share him, inasfar as such could be said of a human being.

A small blessing, given that while Ed didn't object to being shared, as such, he did feel their demands on him might get to a point where he feared his dick might fall off under the near-nightly onslaught of them both.

“Think I might stick around,” Chess said. “On account of havin' nothin' better t'do.”

“Be a bit early in the morning for flattery, ain't it?” Ed wondered if this might mean the stream of jobs and chores might let up some. He suspected not - not so as he'd notice, anyway.

“Aw, Ed. That an invitation?”

“Not really, no. Busy day ahead, too.”

“Not as busy as all that,” Yancey said, proving once more she and Chess really were rather more alike than Ed might ought to have been comfortable with. “Can spare an hour or so, easily.”

“Might make it two.”

“Might make it half of one,” Ed said, but half-heartedly and without much conviction or hope of anyone paying him any attention - at least, not to what he was saying.

Business as usual, he supposed, for all that there might be some cause for celebration.

 

_epilogue_   
_fifty years later, give or take an eternity_

Chess, sitting against an apple tree he remembered from being a sprout (and Yancey, insisting he let it grow on its own, no hexations allowed, not even to make sure it would survive that first Winter) and a warm, gentle Summer's breeze prompting him to look up, to see among the apple blossoms -

_”Miss me, darlin'?”_

“Never much liked people fishin'.”

_”Seems I forgot that about you. 'though I've been reliably informed I didn't know you half as well as I thought, so it might be the loss ain't all that great.”_

“By Ed?” Chess snorted. “Doddering old fool.”

_”Wasn't as old, at the time. Nor much of a fool, ever, far's I remember.”_

“Smarter'n you,” Chess acknowledged. “Not that _that_ 'd take much, mind.”

_”Well.”_

“Still piss-poor at apologies, I see.”

_”I'm sorry.”_

“Don't much see the point of 'em, anyway. I mean, they're just words, ain't they? What good're they going to do, 'cept maybe remind people of all the things that need apologizin' _for_?”

_”You haven't changed one bit.”_

“Have, actually, 'n more than a bit, too.”

_”You'd really prefer arguing over me grovelling at your feet?”_

“Don't see much grovellin' happenin' right now,” Chess observed, and then, because enough was enough: “But yeah. 'less you came to say goodbye or some horseshit like that, which case you can go straight back to Hell or where-else you came from.”

_”Hadn't really planned on going anywhere.”_

“Be sure Yancey and Ed'll enjoy the company.”


End file.
